Theory and Practice of Anarchism Professor Ruth Kinna P5
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April-May-June 2020 Vol 125 • No 2 The Proceedings of the Theory and Practice of Anarchism Professor Ruth Kinna p5 The Theory and Death Machines In Response Practice of Anarchism Dr Elke Schwarz Laura Knight and 5 Professor Ruth Kinna 9 13 Adam Ramejkis Give Peace How Islamism Response to a Chance Perverted Olympism Gavin Esler 17 Olwen Terris 20 A Review 24 David Simmonds EDITORIAL Research Residency CONWAY HALL ETHICAL SOCIETY at Conway Hall Library Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL www.conwayhall.org.uk Dr Sophia Kosmaoglou Trustees’ Chair: Carl Harrison • Honorary Treasurer: Martin Robbins Please email texts and viewpoints to the Editor: [email protected] Staff IN THIS ISSUE Chief Executive Officer As higher education gears up for two more weeks they rely precariously on volunteer labour. Jim Walsh of strikes about pensions, casualisation, workload The focus of my art practice over the last five years has [email protected] Research Residency at 3 Conway Hall Library and pay levels, and independent unions continue been the search for a sustainable alternative. The Arts & Partnerships Manager Dr Sophie Kosmaoglou their campaigns on wages, outsourcing and zero Artuqest Research Residency at Conway Hall Humanist Martha Lee hours contracts, the extent of the reforms that the Library has given me the opportunity to consolidate, [email protected] The Theory and Practice of Anarchism 2010 student protests and occupations were fighting extend and amplify my research on alternative art Finance Manager 5 Professor Ruth Kinna becomes all too clear. education, radical pedagogy and self-organisation. Linda Lamnica [email protected] Death Machines: Artificial Intelligence and The rise in tuition fees was just the start in a coordinated A Co-operative Art School? plan to reconfigure higher education for the market; Under the general title ‘A co-operative art school?’, the Head of Visitor Operations 9 the Ethics of Autonomous Weapons Maggie Nightingale Dr Elke Schwarz lecturers on permanent contracts were given voluntary project is composed of archival research at Conway Hall [email protected] redundancy, a new generation of teaching staff was Library, interviews with co-operatives and alternative art employed on fixed term contracts with twice the workload, schools and participatory action research to crowdsource Visitors Services Assistant In Response: Victorian Blogging staff were outsourced to private companies on zero hours a strategy for a co-operative art school with a survey, Kheira Hadjazi 13 Laura Knight and Adam Ramejkis [email protected] contracts and stripped of their rights, maintenance grants workshops, a festival and exhibition and publications. and bursaries were scrapped, a new ranking system linked It is an extended call for collaborators committed Systems Manager Give Peace a Chance: Conway Hall and course value to employability and student debt. Managers to establishing an alternative model to the capitalist Sid Rodrigues the Peace Movement 17 were employed to oversee this transition and institute an university. [email protected] Olwen Terris auditing culture, close down departments, cut courses By circumventing both the profit-driven private sector Evaluation Officer / Production Editor Ethical Record and commission new buildings. Finally, marketers were and the policy-driven public sector, a co-operative art Deborah Mohanan How Islamism Peverted Olympism: [email protected] employed to promote all this on the strength of university school would provide a democratic form of education, 20 A Review brands and luxury halls of residence. subject to collective decision-making. It would Dr Rumy Hasan Fundraising & Marketing Manager Purged of critique, dissent and scepticism universities reconfigure our understanding of education as a public Jeff Davy are being hollowed out and divested. With underfunded good not through redistribution but as common [email protected] Response to Gavin Esler courses and workshops, aging facilities, ever-shrinking ownership, and our concept of knowledge not as a David Simmonds Marketing Coordinator 24 contact time and bleak prospects in the job market, art product but as a social process. By considering diverse Jordan Mitchell education in particular has been under attack for forms of structural organisation and income generation, [email protected] Obituary decades. It is no surprise that teachers and students are a co-operative art school could build a sustainable Sir Jonathan Miller Venue Hire Managers 26 abandoning academia in search for alternatives. commons-based economy, providing access to shared Carina Dvorak, Brian Biagioni Fuelled by the crisis in higher education, a diverse resources, expertise and training. [email protected] Upcoming Events landscape of alternative art schools has emerged and Through its horizontal structure a co-operative art Operations Coordinator 27 burgeoned into a movement since 2010. A multitude of school would start from the principles of equality and Eva Aubrechtova diverse, experimental and flexible organisations address self-determination to create ethical working conditions. [email protected] the crisis in art education by offering free or affordable It would create alternatives to competitive and art education. Unfettered by rigid ties to funding, policy individualist study and work environments, to encourage Duty Managers Please see the Ethical Record section of conwayhall.org.uk and industry these schools develop new curricula and Ola Gierszynska, Adrian Sobers, Atlas Corsini for regularly updated content, additional articles and trust, long-term commitment and foster collectivity, [email protected], [email protected], also take a look at the online archive, where every issue models of organisation, addressing the unique needs and mutual aid and solidarity in a supportive community of [email protected] published since 1895 is available in digital form. learning styles of individual learners to create subtle but peers, combating anxiety and isolation. significant shifts in art education. Yet apart from notable A co-operative art school would be more than an Maintenance Officer The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society. exceptions like AltMFA, The Other MA and Open School education institution, it would reconfigure art, education Chris Bird Cover photo by Tom Roberts on Unsplash. Registered Charity No. 1156033 [email protected] Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose Charitable Objects are: East, most alternative art schools are short-lived because and work into a way of life. the advancement of study, research and education in humanist ethical principles. 2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 3 THINKING ON SUNDAY LECTURE, 24 November 2019 Conway Hall Library & Archives fertile ground to take root, environmental factors are Nothing could have prepared me for the treasures in the decisive and change produces more change, it emerges Conway Hall Library archives and the intense period of from ideas that make other changes possible. The history discovery and learning during my residency. I wanted of Conway Hall gives me encouragement and teaches me The Theory and Practice of Anarchism to find out how social change happens, how it emerges patience because change is incremental and indirect. through human relationships, how ideas circulate The Festival of Alternative Art Education 2020 will take and spread, how opinions change and how collective place on 21 March 2020 at Conway Hall, bringing Professor Ruth Kinna decisions are made to turn those ideas into action. The together alternative art schools, peer-support groups history of Conway Hall and South Place is in many ways with stalls, workshops, discussions, screenings, tours, a microcosm of the ethical evolution in western society installations, performances, the exhibition The Secret Is over the last two centuries. An intense melting pot of Out: on the theme of cooperation and the launch of ideas, stimulated by dissent, scepticism and freethought. URgh! Zine on self-organised, DIY, peer-led art schools Although I’m fascinated in the leading figures of South and collectives. Place, the evolution of their thought, their vision and influence, my interest lies in the Society itself; the collective that embodied this evolutionary process. The most valuable insight from my research is that change is imperceptible, it does not happen all at once. Ideas need Anarchism routinely attracts a bad press. The actions of power, he thought Marx’s plan was wrongheaded Dr Sophia Kosmaoglou is an artist, tutor, curator and researcher. Her work of a handful of ‘propagandists of the deed’ shaped because the state was not merely an instrument of class addresses the construction of identity through relationships. Her current practice popular perceptions in the nineteenth century. Tales rule. It was a system of domination which necessarily blurs the boundaries between art, education and activism to question the ontology of these bombers and assassins were not just the divided rulers from ruled. The achievement of of art, its social functions and institutional contexts and to experiment with collective stuff of cheap literature, they styled Joseph Conrad’s classlessness would leave this hierarchy intact. economies and learning environments. depictions of anarchists too. Conrad’s stories of There would be an